This will be the last place you ever see.
You’re alone up here, for the time being.
The doors behind you are frozen shut. So many blizzards have hit the buttress that the bolts are welded together by the cold. The energy bridges ahead of you stopped working a long time ago. Whatever neurone once transmitted them has rotted away. Atrophied to dust.
Looking off the edge you see only white, distant, mountains you’ll never reach. The combination of closed corridors and sheer drops makes for a stark difference. A shouting match between agoraphobia and claustrophobia that you can’t hear over the wind.
Wires hang quietly above you, cradling daggers of ice. There are antennas that haven’t worked for a long, long time. Empty vessels, broadcasting to nothing. There’s nobody to call and nowhere left to run.
Metallic steps echo around corners like a bouncing grenade. You run past smooth tile with scratches in the grout. Bullets have left hundreds of pockmarks on the surfaces. Either that or some kind of parasite is eating it from the inside out.
The building feels like a pressure valve. Releasing steam and air for systems beyond it. Like the architect who designed it didn’t expect visitors. The empty rooms and tall doors weren’t meant for anything other than infrequent maintenance.
You dive down a chute and are blinded by an odd green glow from a broken door. The way back is cut off now. Euclidean tricks as you take stairways that seem to only connect back on each other. The only way back up is outside.
The Pascalian wager of a walk. A rope over an abyss. Straddle the thin membrane between worlds as you step outside the parapet and expect the shot. Head tucked and run as you’re buffeted on both sides by wind and air and frost.
Jump into the safety of the tower, stay there and catch your breath. Keep the high ground for as long as you can. Every stone thrown up must come down. This building is a stone that got lodged in the heavens. Carved into an eternal house by alien hands.
You think about what to do next. Which way to go. Left, right, down, or up. At some point you'll have your last thought. And it will be about whether to go left, right, down or up. Whether to look around a corner. See what’s next. You have to move eventually. You can’t stay here forever.
Besides, maybe this isn't the last place. Maybe there is somewhere after this. And maybe you're going there right now.
This is essay one in a set of six travel essays about the Halo universe. To read more click here. For information on future seasons and games click here.
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